National domain, or target each cities EMD?

I have a friend that owns a pretty big business that is looking to expand.
Let's say he has a cleaning business.
Let's say he wants to go national with it.
Now, we know Google loves authority domains, and gives them all the power (amazon/wiki/about/etc), their subpages rank even if there are no links to them. But there is still some value left in EMDs, especially low competition EMDs.
Also, if it's a local EMD, and it's a unique service, it's probably more likely to get some local exposure, than if it was from some generic domain, unless the site goes viral.
What I mean is, say it's a cleaning service, a site like www.chicagocleaningservices.com will probably get more attention locally, than www.somecleaningsite.com/chicago/
Now the EMDs are available for a lot of cities. Traffic isn't huge, few hundred here and there, but competition isn't too high.

I think long term, one base domain would be idea, as it will build all the power, and it's sub pages will get some of that power.
But short term, I think the EMDs would be easier to rank, get links etc.
I was thinking even once they are established, I could move them all to a base site, and 301 the domains to the base site. Not sure how Google would like that though.
At the same time, it would be pretty difficult to market and build links for 10,20,30 EMD sites. But that being said, if it's one generic domain site, I'll still have to be building links for each city if I want it to the to of search engines anyways.

Personally I'd go for a subdomain e.g., chicago.cleaningservices.com. Especially with that kind of traffic and competition won't make any difference, and you'll save big bucks if having multiple cities. Also helps to build the authority of one single domain, as stated above.

EMD is not as powerful as it once was... Also, there's no point to aim for any short term benefits, as there are really none compared to long term ones in this case.

Although if you do have as generic name as "<state/city> cleaning services" you might want to reserve that as well for type-in traffic, no matter how small it might be.

Sub domain seems best bet. But as someone who loves EMDs, I'm having a hard time resisting.

I have over 350 EMDs currently.

Another thing is, the single domain is best for long term, but the area he is in, is kinda an emerging market, which is why they are still available. So creating a monopoly with each city EMD's could be a good idea.

For a serious business just one base domain would of course be best. No offence but it would be retarded not just to rank a generic domain. If you can rank the EMD you could rank the generic also.

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But I'm also thinking of the possibility of getting local exposure, like in the news, paper, local blogs etc.
If I have www.chicagocleaningservices.com and it's newsworthy, it looks like, "Xxxxxx created this site for Chicago residents to find cleaning services."
It appears like it's more in the community, directed towards the actual city.
That's more likely to make local news then www.somecleaningsite.com/chicago. I mean if it gets big enough it'll still get exposure, but it would be tougher to make local news this way.

Keep in mind it's not a site like 'cleaning services' with a well known service/product, it's something that is somewhat new, so is more likely to get exposure.

Personally I'd go for a subdomain e.g., chicago.cleaningservices.com. Especially with that kind of traffic and competition won't make any difference, and you'll save big bucks if having multiple cities. Also helps to build the authority of one single domain, as stated above.

EMD is not as powerful as it once was... Also, there's no point to aim for any short term benefits, as there are really none compared to long term ones in this case.

Although if you do have as generic name as "<state/city> cleaning services" you might want to reserve that as well for type-in traffic, no matter how small it might be.

Click to expand...

I have not seen a subdomain ranking in my local searches in a few years now. Also I would factor in how this will play out if he opens offices in each city or sells franchises of his business. Local search is more or less all about the google places box right? Can you list a subdomain there?

I have not seen a subdomain ranking in my local searches in a few years now. Also I would factor in how this will play out if he opens offices in each city or sells franchises of his business. Local search is more or less all about the google places box right? Can you list a subdomain there?

Click to expand...

I occasionally come across some, and don't really see why it wouldn't be possible to rank one (or more, obviously) like that.

Personally I don't have that much of experience with Google Places, as I have not been working much with offline-businesses, so can't really comment on the latter - although, don't really see why it wouldn't be possible

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